WHO Anne Shirley-Cuthbert & Gilbert Blythe WHERE Gilbert’s apartment! WHEN October 12th WHAT After Anne’s arrival, she gets some modern clothes and harasses Gilbert. STATUS Complete! WARNINGS Some missing of families but it’s tame!
To say it had been a day would have been high on on the obvious statement scale. It also would have been grossly under-explained coming from Anne, who was fit to burst with all the new things she’d learned since her arrival. There had been pizza and pie and skincare and meeting a whole host of lovely people. There had been stories and adventure and exploration.
Thoughts that were there and pushed to the side, in favor of focusing on other things. Other things that did not involve thinking about her lonely existence and desolate tragic love life. Instead, she would think about her new clothes - on borrow and due to go back once she’d bought some of her own - but perfection nonetheless. No doubt everyone in Avonlea would have lost their minds if they saw Anne in the trousers - as form fitting as they were - and floral, puffy sleeved top. The boots had finished it off so perfectly, and Anne had practically danced back to the apartment complex, her dress under arm.
She’d agreed to meet up with Gilbert here, both so she could borrow books and so he could possibly help her learn to navigate this strange and modern world without burning the place down. So she wasted no time with a bright grin and a little twirl, upon seeing him. “Ta-da. I am a truly modern woman now, Gilbert Blythe. What do you think?”
Gilbert wasn't entirely sure what to think of Anne's appearance in Vallo. While he, obviously, was thrilled to see a familiar face, and Anne's at that, he was hesitant to say it was a good thing. Anne who had finally started to find her place in Avonlea, who had Marilla and Matthew to love her in all the ways she had never known. That she was here, without her family, felt wrong somehow to Gilbert. Even if he knew all the amazing things he had found here would only be that much more amazing to Anne. Conflicted, he supposed, was a good word for it.
C - O - N - F - L - I - C - T - E - D.
Which fairly par for the course when it came to his feelings regarding Anne herself to begin with. Anne who somehow had it in her head that he was about to propose to Winifred Rose. A situation Gilbert wasn't sure what to make of. Of course he knew Winifred would be a logical match. Her family was well situated, her father could open doors for him. She was nice, they got along. But - she wasn't Anne. And honestly Gilbert was hard pressed to wrap his mind around securing an engagement with another girl without even being honest about his - conflicted as they were - feelings for Anne.
Which left one conclusion.
He had been honest. At some point between what he remembered and what Anne remembered he must have been honest. And Anne… Anne must have rejected him. That was that.
Still though, Anne was his friend first and foremost. So whatever he felt about his conclusion was shoved to the wayside in lieu of helping his friend settle into a new world.
The clothes brought a smile to his face - or perhaps it was just Anne's grin - and he watched her twirl with amusement. "I think you wear it well, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert," was his reply. It was still an odd little thing to wrap his head around, the fashions of this place. But Anne looked positively thrilled and he was happy for her. He himself had stuck with clothes closer to what he was used to. A button up pressed shirt, a pair of pants he had been told were chinos.
"I have a few I've finished here," he said as he led them into the kitchen and gestured to a stack of five books on the table. "I thought you might really like this one." He picked up the top book - To Kill a Mockingbird and handed it to Anne for inspection. "Scout felt very much like one of your kindred spirits," he added with a warm smile.
A year before, she wouldn’t have admitted even to herself that Gilbert’s smile directed at her made her feel warm and tingly inside. But it did, and she couldn’t stop that. She could remind herself that he wasn’t interested in her and she shouldn’t waste the breath and time on Gilbert’s opinion.
It didn’t actually work like that, though, and Anne was always the sort to care too deeply and too much, even if she could tell herself multiple times over that the opinions of boys had no bearing on her life. Until they did. Or she couldn’t stop thinking about them.
It didn’t help when he looked like a modern delight and had books to share and Anne’s freckled cheeks were flushing with pleasure as soon as the book was handed to her. She clutched it as if it was a life-line, pulling it to her bosom and hugging it lovingly before bringing it forward again to touch the cover with delicate fingers.
“Oh how heavenly.” She’d have to learn to school her features when she looked up at Gilbert someday, but today was not going to be that day. At least in this case, half of that adoration was directed at the book clutched in her hands. “To Kill a Mockingbird. I’ll treasure each and every word. Have you been to the library yet? I put it on the list of things to do, it comes after meeting a few more trees, seeing the Market and maybe introducing myself to a few of the goats and alpacas.” She was rambling now, there was no hope for it. “Just so they know I’m a friendly face, of course.”
Gilbert didn't mind the rambling. He never really had. And he just waited, fond amusement on his face as he watched Anne, for her to reach the end before he dared to speak. He had missed this. Missed her. More so than he was willing to admit to himself. Vallo had been endlessly interesting but how often he had caught himself thinking of how much Anne would find it so had been… well, a lot.
He nodded to her question that had been near the start of the ramble. "I have. There's several here actually," he paused, a smile. "More books than you will even know what to do with." More than one could maybe even read in their lifetime.
"We can go the next day they're open," he assured her. "The people who run it are nice, they helped me a lot when I first showed up."
Anne and Gilbert had known each other for years. Years. And it had taken until recently for her to notice just how patient he was with her. How much he waited, and just let her talk, before speaking his peace. It was both a nice reminder of why her feelings had developed and hit her so suddenly on the back of the head and a sad tragical moment where this was it and she would never get to experience this sort of feeling ever again because Gilbert didn’t want her.
It was a dramatic thought that Anne had to quietly tell herself to shush over, as she sat down at the table near the stack of books, still clutching the one that Gilbert had handed her. She sighed, wistfully. “Oh, that sounds wonderful. Both being buried in books and visiting the Market. Blue lives there and she was ever so helpful, and there are so many people there!” A family, as she’d gleaned from her conversations with the replies to her network post.
That made her sigh again, this time with a little more sadness to it. “The apartment they’ve given me is lovely, you know, but-- so empty. I’ve never lived on my own, even if I’ve felt as if I was alone before, there were always people.”
"Maybe they'll let you help out around the place," he suggested. Anne would like that. More time to chat with the animals. But if not, a good long visit he imagined would do wonders itself.
Gilbert nodded a little. It had been an adjustment for him too, the quiet where Bash and Delphine once resided. It reminded him far too much of those weeks after his father died. The big empty house filled with ghosts at every turn. Even still he had trouble with it. Which was ridiculous, he knew. He was seventeen, he would have been on his own in a handful of months back home anyways.
But there was something very lonely about it. Feeling out of place in general with every day being something new to catch up on and then spending his evenings in an apartment far too big for one person.
He glanced down, scuffed his toe against the floor. It wouldn't be proper. Not by a long shot. He shuddered to think of anyone in Avonela's opinion of what he was about to propose. But they weren't in Avonlea. Besides, it wasn't as though there were anything untoward in his intentions. If anything his intentions were simply that they were in a very, very different world than the one they'd left behind and it would be far easier to help each other and look out for each other this way.
"What if you stayed here?" a quick pause. "There's another bedroom," he added quickly.
Anne’s eyes went wide. Marilla would have lost her mind with that kind of suggestion near her. It just isn’t done, Anne! whispered harshly in the back of her brain. Her imagination was getting the better of her as she pictured all of the people in Avonlea whispering about them living together as if they’re in sin.
But it wasn’t a sin to be with family, was it? And Gilbert was that, these days, in the same way that Diana, Cole, Bash, Delphine and Aunt Josephine were. They weren’t the family she had been born with, but they were a family that had all found each other.
“Oh, I--” She still hadn’t brought herself to say yes to the offer, but it made her stomach ache and her heart warm and Anne was certain she was blushing uncontrollably. It was a lot of feelings all at once, with the knowledge that someone wanted to willingly live with her and the knowledge that she had a person here she could look to. “I’ve-- never been one for doing what people expect of me, so--”
Anne sucked in a breath and then nodded. “Sure. Yes. Okay.” She leveled her very best stern look at him, “But if Marilla shows up, we have to lie or I will never see the light of day again.”
Rachel Lynde would be absolutely losing her mind if she knew. Though Gilbert tended not to put much stock in Rachel Lynde's gossip. Or anyone's for that matter. Besides, it wasn't the first time he offered a space to stay in an "inappropriate" manner. He knew the talk that had occurred when he'd arrived back in Avonlea with Bash and put him up the way he had.
And like Anne he viewed this as what one did for their family. Even with his feelings for Anne his offer was nothing more than innocent. They were both alone, they were both completely out of their element. Anne was his family in all the ways that mattered and family stuck together.
Gilbert laughed softly at Anne's assessment of herself. "I would be worried the day you started to," he answered. But it was a fond tease. After all that was what he liked the most about Anne. The fact she lived by her own set of rules. It was refreshing.
"It's settled then," he said with a nod and smile. "If Marilla shows up we'll move you out in record time and never speak a word of this," was his reply with another laugh.
With a decisive nod of her ginger head, Anne set the book on the table firmly and stood, holding out her hand for a firm handshake. “You have yourself a deal, Gilbert Blythe. I’ll get my things and move in immediately, and then you can show me how the television works. I’ve a mind to master everything by sunset.”